"What do you mean improve? I charged him correctly didn't I?". My manager looked at me disappointed. "Yes, Des, you charged him correctly. But a vending machine can do that too. They show up on time, they're more accurate, I don't pay them by the hour and they're never hungover. Your job is to do something that a vending machine can't do. Your job is to make our customers happy. Give them a good experience. Bring them back here again. Get it?"

MBAs call this "customer experience", though when it's spelled out it sounds more like common sense. And like most common sense it's rarely that common. Especially in the world of subscription software where we need customers to stick around. User experience designers are great at making software friendly and usable to new customers.

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